


Where Everybody Knows Your Name

by katwithallergies



Category: White Collar
Genre: Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-12
Updated: 2012-07-13
Packaged: 2017-11-03 13:22:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/381787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katwithallergies/pseuds/katwithallergies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal’s file said that as far as the FBI was concerned he wasn’t from anywhere.  That doesn't stop Peter from looking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my personal canon for Neal's backstory. I know it becomes AU somewhere a couple seasons ago when the writers revealed some of his history... I like my version better. All mistake are my own. Thanks for reading.

Neal’s file said that as far as the FBI was concerned he wasn’t from anywhere. 

He didn’t have any birth records or school records and no family members had ever been identified. 

There was even a report from an FBI linguist who’d spent an afternoon in Peter's office listening to and watching tapes of Neal, stating that he displayed a learned accent and dialect, mixing features from several of the most common American regions, and that no trace of his natural accent or dialect was present. 

Off the record, she had told Peter that people who went to the trouble to cover up their natural accents and adopted a high-class demeanor, like Neal, tended to come from poverty in rural areas.  That was where Peter’s wild-goose chase after Neal’s origins finally got its second wind.

It had started when they were in-between leads.  Chasing after Neal was so often like chasing the wind; when they lost his scent it could be months before he threw them a bone and the chase started again.  Someone told Peter that if he wanted to catch a criminal he should try starting over, at the beginning, and lord knows he’d had no better ideas, so he did. 

All his initial efforts, fully documented in Neal’s files, were fruitless.  Not surprisingly, there were a lot of Caffreys and none of them sounded like Neal.  Anyway, he’d always assumed that Caffrey was simply a very old alias and not his real name. 

After the meeting with the linguist, who’d been his last shot in the dark, he decided to re-run welfare and Medicaid records for Caffreys from rural areas and, unbelievably, he got lucky.  A woman whose name was Carol-Ann Blalock had attempted to commit welfare fraud in 1986 by filing under the false name of Caffrey.  Peter almost passed out from the shock as the pages spooled off the printer.

 

Neal was from West Virginia, deep in Appalachia, a little hollow called Gifford’s Mill.  He was in the middle of a dozen kids from different fathers all living with their mother in a two room shack.  The welfare assessor generously described it as a “cabin;” next to “Running water Y/N” she’d written “Other: neighbor’s garden hose.”

Peter traveled south and spent two weeks hiking through the mountains, visiting Neal’s house and interviewing witnesses in the nearby town where he’d gone to school.  Most of the widows’ Sunday school class who had delivered biweekly groceries to the family now resided in the nursing home in town.  They told him stories about the children, but none could remember one named “Neal.”  Peter had known it was a longshot.

There were so many children, they said, and they were all skinny and dark-haired.  Their mother was an alcoholic and drug addict who didn’t look after them and had been dead for several years due to an overdose. By all accounts the children were practically feral.  From the description of their living situation, Peter could see how that would happen. 

What he couldn’t see is where the Neal he knows came from.  There were plenty of crime reports of thefts and vandalism by the children, but they were all identified as “Blalock” only.  Peter imagined he saw Neal’s signature on a few.  There were also a handful of reports on file with the school district.  Children coming to school with suspicious bruises, broken bones, blood, but even with grade levels it's hard to pin Neal down.  It seems no one ever bothered to remove the children from their mother’s care. 

The police were out at least weekly to break up fights between the mother and the children’s various fathers.  They provided him with a list of names of the men in Neal’s mother’s life and he had Jones fax him their criminal records and mug shots.  Nothing in their descriptions suggested which could be Neal’s father, but one, Tommy Dufresne, was grinning Neal’s grin in his mug shot.  He’d died in prison ten years earlier. 

It was around this point Peter decided to keep what he’d learned off the record.  It didn’t seem right that anyone at the FBI who cared to look could know more about Neal than he probably did about himself.

The interviews drug on longer than would have thought possible and he ate so many meals at the little greasy spoon café that he pregnant waitress didn’t even have to ask his order anymore.  But it finally paid off when one of the ladies at the nursing home was having a particularly lucid day.

Peter’s eyes nearly fell out of his head when she produced from her bible a yellowed, creased piece of paper with names and guesses at birth dates for the Blalock clan.  And there he was:

_“Michael –spring ‘85 - shirt size 6, pants size 6/7”_

“Michael Blalock…” Peter mumbled.

“Here, you take it,” the woman said, pressing the fragile paper into his hands.  “We was just tryin’ to take care of them back then, the best way we knew how; didn’t know no better way to do it. And I reckon you just tryin’ to do the same now.  You tryin’ to take care of him…” she’d patted his hand and turned away to stare out the window with her normal, catatonic gaze.

Peter had flown back to New York with the yellowed paper folded carefully in his breast pocket and gotten back to the business of trying to catch Neal.  For the next several years the woman’s voice, cracked and worn like that scrap of a page, had haunted Peter. 

_“Tryin’ to take care of him… the best way you know how.”_


	2. Chapter 2

Neal had been a little off for their entire trip down to the mountains.  Every night in the hotel room Peter lay awake, debating whether to bring it up to Neal, afraid it would upset their tenuous balance.  He was still hoping Neal might decide to tell him himself.  Not that it had ever happened before, but he lived in hope.

Finally, on their last night eating a greasy dinner at the diner across from the hotel Peter broke.

“I know about Gifford’s Mill,” he said. 

Neal stopped chewing his burger and looked Peter over.  Anyone else might have choked, but that wasn’t Neal.

“I’m impressed,” he chewed slowly.  “How long have you known?”

Peter recalled the two weeks he’d spent hiking the hills of West Virginia in a sweat-sticky suit, tracking down the place where Neal had grown up and questioning anyone who might have known him.  “A while,” was all he said.

“Did you find my real name?” Neal asked, a hint of a dare in his voice.

“I feel like that’s a trick question. Since neither you nor any of your siblings have birth certificates or social security numbers, your ‘real’ name may actually be the least real one given that it doesn’t exist on paper,” Neal’s grin grew wider as Peter rambled.  “But yes, Michael Blalock, I did.”

Neal leaned back in the booth like all the wind had gone out of him. Peter couldn’t tell if he was relieved or depressed. 

“Yeah, yeah. Okay,” Neal said, flashing a hint of his trademark grin, and taking a big bite of burger.

 

“I’m not Michael,” Neal said suddenly into the dark, humid air of their hotel room.

“What?” Peter had been almost asleep, thinking about getting back to El tomorrow.

“I’m not Michael.  He’s my younger brother.”  Peter rolled up on his elbow so he could see Neal in the pale light.  He was lying on his back on the other bed with his arms crossed over his middle, eyes closed.  “I’m Matthew.”  Silence settled on the room like a wet blanket.

Peter switched on the lamp. “Matthew was too young … he was at least three years too young to be you.”

Neal squinted at him in the glare from the light.  “I’m voluntarily correcting your inaccurate research about my past life, and you’re doubting me?  I just told you me real name!”

“I know, I know,” Peter came to sit on the edge of Neal’s bed.  “Thank you.” Neal watched him, unblinking.  “It’s just—I really did my homework.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself. The age on my file probably isn’t as accurate as you think it is,” he said and rolled onto his side to face Peter.

“How old are you?”

Neal shrugged.  “I don’t really know.  I figure about 28, but I might be off by a year of so.”

“Doesn’t it bother you, not knowing?  Do you even know what month your birthday is?”  Neal shook his head.

“Nah, it’s not a big deal.  I’ve been using the Caffrey birthday for so long, it feels just as good.”

“Hang on,” Peter said, getting up.  “We might be able to figure this out.”  He rummaged in his briefcase and pulled out a worn notebook marked ‘ _Caffrey’_ in sharpie.

“Do I even want to know why you’re still carrying that?” Neal asked as Peter sat back down on his bed.

“I guess I still consider you an open case.” Peter flipped through the book to a page with a much-scratched-through list of all Neal’s siblings and approximate birthdays.  “Okay, I’ve got Matthew born in the winter of ’86, in between Michael and Shelby.  That would make you 24.”

“I’m older than Michael,” Neal said, levering himself up to look over Peter’s shoulder.  “I was really small so people always thought I was younger.  I think I was right after Jimmy.”

“I don’t have a Jimmy,” Peter chewed on the end of his pen.

“BamBam?” Neal suggested.

“Him I’ve got.”

“Okay, that’s Jimmy.”  Peter looked over his shoulder questioningly.  “It’s a long story,” Neal said.

“The church ladies have BamBam born in ’83 and Michael in ’85,” Peter ran his finger down the page, trying to recalculate everything in light of what Neal was saying.

“You got this from the church ladies?” Neal interrupted.  Peter shook a fragile piece of yellow paper out of the notebook.

“I interviewed everyone I could find; spent a week camped out in the old folks home.  One of them had this in her Bible.”  He unfolded the paper carefully and studied the spidery cursive.  “ _Matthew – Winter’86?- pants 6 / shirt5,”_ he read.  “You were tiny.  This was written in ’92.  They thought you were six, but you must have been at least nine or ten?”

“Yeah…” Neal said distractedly, pouring over the list.  “I was in the wrong grade in school, too.  That didn’t help.”

“You started late?” Peter asked, trying to picture six-year-old Neal heading to kindergarten.

“And repeated.  First and third,” Neal admitted.

“Hang on, there’s a better way to do this,” Peter flipped to a different part of the notebook.  “I interviewed some teachers.”

He scanned through the pages of notes, Neal reading intently over his shoulder, until he found what he was looking for.  “Mrs. Karen Wright had Matthew Blalock in her third grade class in ’94.”  He looked over at Neal, “Was that your first or second time in third grade?”

“Second, I think,” Neal said, already adding it up in his head.  “So if I was six when I started school, seven and eight in first grade, nine in second, ten my first time in third, then I was eleven my second time.”

“Okay, if you were eleven in ’94 that would mean you were born in ’83,” Peter calculated.  “Which makes you 27 now.”

“Twenty-seven, a year younger than I thought I was,” Neal leaned back on his elbows.  “You hear that Peter?  I’m too good looking to age, I’m going backwards already!”

Peter snorted a laugh and flipped through his book again, back to the first list.  “Jimmy, aka BamBam was born in late summer of ’83.  That must have been you,” Peter crossed through some things and scribbled new notes into his notebook.  “They seem to have had a pretty good idea of when new babies came along, they just got you all mixed up somewhere along the line.”

“Late summer, you think that could mean August?” Neal was lying on his back again, staring up at the ceiling a little wistfully.  “This is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a real birthday, Peter.”

“You know, Satchmo’s birthday is August 11th.  You could share.”

“I’d like that,” Neal laughed. 

“Me too,” Peter let himself ruffle Neal’s hair and closed his _‘Caffrey’_ notebook.  “It’s June already, we need to plan.  What are we going to do for your birthday?” Peter flipped the lamp off.

“It’s going to be epic, Peter.  Just you wait,” Neal whispered.

 _“Just tryin’ to take care of him…”_ Peter heard the old church lady saying as he fell asleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Long corridors with hard, echoing floors.  High windows and locked doors, the constant reek of bleach.  Peter couldn’t imagine that Neal had run away to here, of all places, but his was where this tracker led.  He flashed his badge to get onto the secure unit and slowed his steps, peering around corners and into open doors for Neal. 

When he finally found him Peter tripped over his own feet sliding back, out of sight.  He edged slowly around the corner to get another look.  He felt like he wasn’t supposed to see this.

“Does he belong to you?”                                                                                   

Peter jumped and looked down at the nurse who had come up quietly by his shoulder.  She nodded toward the sight behind the safety-glass window, “I noticed his ankle jewelry.  Figured somebody would be comin’ to get him sooner or later.”

“He’s not—“ Peter said quickly.  He’d been about to say _he’s not a criminal,_ but then that wasn’t quite true.  He would realize later that he’d ignored her actual question.  “He’s not dangerous.” He glanced down at the woman’s name tag, _Pigeon Forge Rest Home; Hi, My name is:_ “Glorietta, he’s not a threat, he just--” 

“Oh, honey, I ain’t worried,” she interrupted, laughing a little.  She had dimples when she smiled and her vowels rolled and dipped like the mountain hills.  “My ex-husband and two of my nephews wear those, I know it don’t mean nothing.”

Peter relaxed and nodded, his eyes drawn back to Neal.  Neal who was currently well outside his radius sitting on a plastic-covered sofa surrounded by clucking old women.

“Besides,” the nurse said, voice softening, “your boy’s been sweet as pie to the ladies all morning.”  Peter watched as Neal made a woman’s false teeth disappear from under a cup and replaced them with an origami rose.  The toothless woman laughed delightedly and two others clamored to request a trick.

“I gotta admit,” the nurse said, shaking her head, “I’m a little surprised he’d come onto a locked ward willingly after… you know.”

“I think he knows some of your residents,” Peter explained, not taking his eyes off Neal.  “Or knew them. When he was younger.”

Neal was talking, but Peter couldn’t hear him through the double paned glass.  His face was smooth and unguarded and his eyes went wide with delight when one of the ladies laughed.  He looked as animated as he always did in his element-- waving his hands and winking at the ladies, putting on a show.

Neal made another origami flower appear from his sleeve and, without missing a beat, produced his handkerchief to wipe the chin of a drooling, catatonic woman in a wheelchair.  Peter took two steps back until he was hidden behind a solid wall, suddenly very interested in his shoes.  He cleared his throat.

“Do you need me to get him for you?” the nurse offered reluctantly.  Peter stuck his hand in his pocket and touched his cell phone. “He painted Miss Bettie’s nails this mornin’,” she told him, “and he said he’d play Bingo later.”

“He’ll cheat,” Peter promised her, caught off guard by a laugh. 

“The ladies won’t notice,” she said, turning back to Neal.  “They’re just tickled to have a new play mate.”

“I can wait,” Peter said.  “I’ll just wait out front in my car till he’s done.”  Sneaking one last glance at Neal (singing, a show tune no doubt, while two of the ladies danced) Peter turned back toward the exit.  He’d call the office and let them know everything was fine; he’d fudge on the details.  Nobody needed to know.

“Maybe they oughta’ make it like a program, you know,” the nurse mused, following him down the hallway.  “Like therapy dogs, only with convicts.  Bring ‘em to the old folks home and let ‘em spend some time together. Probably be good for both of ‘em.”

Peter could already picture his boss’ face as he pitched the idea of convict-senior citizen play dates.  He bit his lip to keep his laughter quiet and nodded, pausing with his hand on the door, “Probably would.”

The nurse waved her badge in front of a sensor to unlock the door and a buzzer sounded loud. “Will you let him come back?” she asked over the alarm.

“As often as he wants,” he assured her. “I promise.” 


End file.
